Bilbo Baggins was born in the Somme mud

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Tolkien’s hobbits inhabit a distant mythological land. But they are rooted in the real soldiers he met in the trenches

Soldiers on leave from a war zone have a particular way of speaking about the experience. They seldom dwell on what they have seen: the blood, the fear or the boredom. Instead they tend to make light of the unspeakable. The tone is ironical, dry as Helmand dust. I once asked a badly wounded soldier what was the worst thing about military life in Afghanistan. He paused and then replied: “The breakfasts.”

This is the authentic voice of the British squaddie, wry and resilient. It is also the voice of the hobbit. J. R. R. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit in